My Impressions of the Expanse 1st episode (SPOILERS)

This is a lazy copy and paste of an email I wrote a friend.  I just wanted to get it into blog form before more time had passed, but just don't have the free time to re-write it all bloggy-spiffy.  Hopefully its semi coherent

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so heres why i liked episode 1, esp after watching it a 2nd time. 

a lot of it plays on what you are trained to expect from a tv show, is that a legit thing?  i mean is the writing good, or is it just "tricky"?  not sure yet, just know it deked me out and i loved it. 

so it starts off with the clearly-kidnapped/prisoner girl. she escapes. ship is empty but has dead ppl in it. why did they leave her? as this is the opening scene, episode (if not series) seems to clearly be all about her and this seems to get our focus in a dramatic fashion right off the bat.  who is she?  why was she locked up? who attacked the ship and killed everyone but didnt free her before leaving?  lots of good questions, so far so good, also i love them not showing any resolution, no trying to communicate, no leaving ship, they just change scenes with her (like audience) going what the fuck?

so earth and mars are both abusing the belters/sirius for resources like colonials. ok so now this 2nd scene, which seems to bluntly be setting up the basic theme of the series - exploitation of working class, military mars versus greedy earth megacorps... ok that seems fine for a series.  but again, feels like they are laying this out in a very specific, blunt, plain, order in a pilot to just lay some basics for new viewerrs.  so far so good, nothing special.  

shady cop, who was born on earth but is now stuck here, interests me.  why did he switch from earth to belter?  as they hint, it may not have been his choice.  ok thats a nice long term hint about him, neat.  the first time i watched it, i thought he was too similar to blade runner cop deckard. 2nd time, he seemed more unique and sleazier in a good way.

so cop gets mission to look for kidnapped girl from scene 1.  so far im liking it but this is paint by numbers, cop will look for girl we found in scene 1.  pretty basic. plot point 1 - cop looking for girl

series often have two intertwined plots, and here comes #2 - the Capistrano or whatever the mining ship is called.  Ok so the series will be about the cop in the belter station (sirius?) and this crew of the mining ship (capistrano or something named)

so we are like 15 min in, and as a pilot episode should, we have the basic layout.

all of this seems immediately confirmed when 

a) we spend a ton of time with the ships politics, XO killing himself, new guy not wanting XO job, his relationship with navigator in trouble, guy losing arm, discussion about the ships repairs that are needed, setting up future issues, will they get paid on time or screwed out of bonus... we spend a lot of time on this ship and its crew. and i liked it all.  but all of it completely sold me about how important all of these crew will be and all of their already complex issues and relationships. 

b) SO PREDICTABLE, but fine - they clearly find the derelict ship that had the kidnapped woman on it.  

obviously, esp bc this is the pilot episode,. the crew will find the woman, go to sirius, meet the cop who is looking for her, thereby linking plot #1 with plot #2, and there will probably be some twist as to why the cop doesnt immediately turn woman over.  i am 100pct sure i know every word of rest of show at this point with like 20 min to go.

huh, the UN earth woman is torturing the crap out of a belter who is part of OPA, which from the earlier references (i missed most my first viewing), did NOT sound like a terrorist org, just a pro-belter political party. this is starting to feel a little like Palestine where its a political party w terrorists sub group.  missed that first viewing.  

but anyways, i was shocked when indian lady was cruel as fuck, and just chalked it up to maybe later plot stuff, but nothing really important. pilot will just fill in the blanks to have crew save girl, crew meet cop.

then the belter finds the derelict. they dont find girl. its al la set up.  an advanced Mars stealth cruiser NUKES the Capistrano and all of those crew we had gotten to knoiw, except the 4 left on that crappy shuttle.  what the hell, they nuked the ship?!?

i cannot believe how much time they spent letting us get to know the crew oinly to nuke them.

 - wheres the girl?

 - who kidnapped her?

 - did she escape or get taken by ... i dunno who

 - why did a super advanced mars ship set the trap?  if they want to start a war, wouldnt they just attack?

 - shuttle crew left stranded in middle of nowhere, but who cares - they have no leads, clues, hell they didnt even know theres a kidnapped girl at all.  if they do make it back to Sirius, what real info do they have?

the episode basically ends at square one.  cop plot and shuttle plot completely off the rails, the easy link up via wanting/having girl never happens, and i have no idea what either is going to do.  

anyways i was pretty impressed when everything i expected to happen nice and cleanly, linking up the two groups in a plot revolving around a girl, somehow tied to a simmering cold war about to turn hot, was frigging NUKED.  

Wargaming Holiday Cleanup

Lord knows i love lists, and making them, and then marking things off of them. Its my great love.  I used these last few days to do a lot of that.

Since there are so many WoT tanbks i still want, I had planned to massively grind all 4 days of the x5.  It didnt work out that way, but ended up working out all-around fantastic.

On Sat, I played mostly serious, or serious-ish.  This comes up mainly bc I was keeping track of credits as well as XP, and I would later be quite shocked to see how much easier it is to make creds when you play well.

On Sat, I played 10 hours, I made it thru (that is, got x5 wins) about 25 of my 76 prems.  I made 175k XP, and 1.23 million creds - or 123k creds per hour.  Pretty great.

On Sunday, i was up right at server reset, and set the goal of completing a x5 win in all 76 of my prems.  However, this is when the yoloing started.  Get some damage in, die fast, move onto next tank.  Quantity over quality.

What i found interesting were the results - Xp didnt drop all that much, but credits earned plummeted.
I ended up not making it (67 of 76, the last 9 were just too painful).  After 13 hours, I had gotten 67 of 76 wins, made another 365k XP, but only 1.51 M credits.

So playing serious
XP -> 17.5k / hour
creds - 123k / hour

Yoloing -
XP -> 28.07k / hour
creds -> 116k / hour

And now that i redo the math, its not as bad as i thought haha!  THIS POAST LOST ITS POINT.

Monday i neededa break entirely, and had much unfinished business, which I am glad to say i got done

 - unlocked Emden on Wows Asia
 - finished the pearls i needed for Kamikaze R on Wows Asia
 - unlocked the Emden on Wows NA
 - decided to just buy the damn Emden on Wows Eu next week.

Today I may try to cherry pick some prems and earn a little more xp.  to be honest, when I had earned 535k in 2 days, i thought Id have a ton left over after buying the JPE 100 I wanted.  Well once i get paid in January and can convert it heh.

But doing the math, I think I only have like 60k left over - way less than i expected.  I had already begun making (you guessed it) a list of what to spend "all this extra xp on" only to find out there wouldnt be much.

But now i have a list haha!  So its back to the grindstone.  Instead of being happy i accomplished main goal of getting the xp i need for JPE 100, i now am disappointed i dont have enough for the second big purchase.

The rat race is anathema to many, but to me it is a cozy, comfy home!

Screng

RIP Tabletop

“Tabletop is more than just a show where we play games. Tabletop is where millions of people from all over the world go to see how games are played, and to discover new games. We have a responsibility to our audience, and we have let a lot of you down. This is even more infuriating to me this season, because this season was literally made possible by people reaching into their own pockets and trusting us with their money. We had a responsibility to take good care of that, and we didn’t.”

WOW, thank god reading over-acting isnt fatal. This paragraph only works if i replace “Tabletop” with “Chemotherapy for Kids with Cancer”

The reason season three sucks is because you have changed, as you admit in many places, from the formula from seasons 1 and 2.

Put down the Cross youre so exhausted from bearing that no one asked you to pick up. Just play games and enjoy them, and let us watch. It is obvious from the Valkana and season 3 eps that you are forcing them out under an enormous strain to make them some kind of miracles of production quality.

Fire Wil the Executive Producer and re-hire Wil the Gamer.

Kobayashi Maru from Wrath of Khan - Anti-Nuke protest?

In World War II, Japanese cargo ships were all named with "Maru" as the last word.  Here's a sample from The USS Bowfin (SS-287) credited kills. Copied and pasted from wikipedia

• The passenger-cargo ship Kirishima Maru on 25 September 1943
• The tanker Ogurasan Maru and cargo ship Tainan Maru on 26 November 1943^[10]
• The Vichy France cargo ship Van Vollenhoven on 26 November^[11] or 27 November 1943^[10]
• The passenger-cargo ship Sydney Maru and the 9,866-ton tanker Tonan Maru on 28 November 1943^[10]
• A pair of schooners she destroyed with her four-inch gun on 30 November (1943)
• The cargo ship Shoyu Maru on 17 January 1944
• The cargo ship Tsukikawa Maru on 10 March 1944
• The cargo ships Shinkyo Maru and Bengal Maru on 24 March 1944
• The passenger-cargo ship Tsushima Maru on 22 August 1944
• Assisted Aspro (SS-309) in the sinking of the 4,500-ton cargo ship Bisan Maru on 14 May 1944
• The frigate Coastal Defense Vessel No. 56 on 17 February 1945
• The passenger-cargo ship Chowa Maru on 1 May 1945
• The cargo ship Daito Maru No. 3 on 8 May 1945
• The passenger-cargo ship Shinyo Maru No. 3 on 7 September 1944
• The cargo ship Akiura Maru on 13 June 1945

You get the idea.  

So when Screenwriter Jack B. Sowards named the iconic ship in Wrath of Khan after a friend Jim Kobayashi, he must probably have known its connection to World War II shipping.- and the fact that Maru indicated it was not a warship.

What do we know of the Kobayashi Maru test from the movie?  It is an un-winnable scenario.  It has entered our lexicon as synonymous with a no-win situation.

My brief research into Mr. Sowards turned up absolutely no supporting evidence, but when has that ever stopped someone with internet access, soft tacos,  and caffeine?

I believe the Kobayashi Maru scenario from Wrath of Khan was more that just a lesson about life's tough choices for the audience and the characters, but also a subtle anti-nuclear war/weapons metaphor.  

The true no-win scenario is nuclear war.  Sowards, aged 16 when the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, preventing the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945 from spreading to conquest of the home islands, might have been greatly influenced by those events and at that age, at that dramatic time in our Nation's history.  He was in his 30s during the Cuban missile crisis, a father with children.  About to turn 60, he penned The Wrath of Khan.

Watching it now, it suddenly became clear that it was a warning about nuclear war, a subtle protest wrapped up in one of the most famous scenes of all time.  A helpless civilian cargo ship, named in line with WW2 Japanese merchant shipping, is trapped between two powerful forces in an untenable situation.  The scenario always ends in death - it is simply a matter of making decisions to limit them.

Reading the fiction surrounding the Kobayashi Maru when other officers took it, I am even more convinced it is a metaphor for nuclear war.

Sulu, of Japanese ancestry himself, realizes it is a trap, and does not enter the Neutral Zone - the Maru is destroyed but his crew is saved, by restraint from participation.

Chekov, Russian, tries the most military and sacrificial approach, and destroys both his ship and the three Klingon D7 cruisers - but his efforts are for nothing, as in horror he realizes the catastrophic explosion he gave his crew's lives to create is too large, and claims the lives of all of the Maru crew as well.  His aggressive, honorable, military sacrifice ends up killing absolutely everyone involved, Starfleet, Klingon, and Maru.  

I wish i could ask these questions to Mr Soward, but he has passed.  

Of particular interest, I would like to know if he knew why we dropped the Atomic weapons when he penned it.  Fairly recent scholarship and declassification have shown us that the Japanese were asking to discuss surrender after the massive Soviet invasion just a few weeks earlier, but the weapons were dropped anyways to end the war in dramatic fashion as the Soviets prepared to make massive land-grabs in Asia, having moved their armies from Germany to Kamchatka ( how awesome is it when you get to use a Risk country in a real-world project??).  

The weapons were dropped on a savaged civilian population purely because the strategic focus of both the US and USSR had already shifted their foci to post-War consolidation and conquest of resources.

I believe the iconic movie scene was written partially as a tribute to the civilian victims of Atomic weaponry - women and children, between Starfleet and Klingons - i mean, US and the USSR - caught in a "Kobayashi Maru" as their deaths were required to prevent the Soviet conquests in Asia. 

(Not a lot of Americans know that the Russians had invaded Manchuria and even announced intentions to permanently occupy Japanese home islands before the Atomic weapons had been dropped, because that would imply we didn't win the war single-handedly, and even worse, that the nuking of civilians wasn't actually necessary to avoid American casualties.  "We had to" fades away.)

Anyways, I choose to view it this way.

The Pater (or Lord's Prayer) was the favourite Cathar prayer - arguably their only prayer.
It is, after all the only one sanctioned by the New Testament. 

The Cathar Pater (from the «Cathar Ritual»)
Pater noster qui es in celis, sanctificetur nomen tuum; adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua sicut in celo et in terra.
Panem nostrum supersubstancialem da nobis hodie.
Et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
 Et ne nos inducas in temptationem sed libera nos a malo.
Quoniam tuum est regnum et virtus et gloria in secula.
Amen.

 "Our father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our supplementary bread, And remit our debts as we forgive our debtors. And keep us from temptation and free us from evil. Thine is the kingdom, the power and glory for ever and ever. Amen."

I am right, you need to adopt this as your own thought

People fundamentally misunderstand, and hence under appreciate, America. I have 3 main problems with contemporary political discussion. Although I reserve the right to add additional levels of bitterness or annoyance as needed.

1) "America" vs "America"

This one is subversive but subtle. It worms its way into the thought and vocabulary of even many independant and intellectual Americans.

When you say "America", such as "America is great", what do you mean by it?

Do you mean our land itself, the earth and soil and Natural resources?

Do you mean our culture, our tolerance, our collective zeigeist, sense of humor, ethics?

Do you mean our low car insurance rates?

Do you mean our economic or military power?

All too often, people think of america from a pragmatic. pratical angle, proud of our GDP and growth and economic and material successes.

-- Doesnt that imply that you would no longer consider America great if other countries one day made more money, or had cheaper car insurance?

Worst of all, however, people use "America" to mean our government, our congress, even our President. And the people themselves, not just the structure!

-- Doesnt that imply that you'd love America itself less if/when morons get elected?

America is independant and external from those elements!!

America is a concept. It is a powerful, bold, terrifying, and open-ended experiment with no safety net. Do not love America because of a paycheck, or economic power, or prestige, or world leadership, or low car insurance rates.

Love America for reasons that you would still be loving her, even if other countries surpass us in GDP or flying cars or whatever. Value freedom above all else.

We did not form this country because we wanted to be successful. We formed it because we NEEDED to be free, at any risk. So dearly, that we revolted.

2) Will of the People

The phrase 'will of the people' has been tossed around a great deal lately, and all with a positive spin... as if a successful and free democracy automatically should enact the will of the majority.

"Will of the people" should send chills up ones spine just as readily as "Final Solution."

While we are a democracy, our country is the ONLY ONE founded with the clear mandate to do just the oppsite of every single country that had ever existed since the dawn of time - to PROTECT the minority from the 'Will of the People'.

And not only protect us from the will of the people, but from our government itself.

Every bad idea in history has been 'the will of the people'. We choose to live in a land where no matter how popular, no matter how universally seen as truth, no opinion or policy can ever be forced onto the unwilling.

3) Genius of The Founding Fathers

But more than anything else, more than choosing not to take up the mantle of lordship and power, more than protecting the weak from the populist masses pressuring them, our founding fathers realized one essential truth -

Government, any government - even our own benevolent and well-intentioned new creation - is inherently Evil.

Instead of trying to form the perfect benevolent government, they created the smallest, least powerful, least intrusive one they could imagine.

Men and Women writing a new government and choosing not to give themselves power because they knew that no matter how smart, how erll intentioned, even they could not be trusted - other than the Gospels of Christ, I can think of few other inspired moments in human history.

God Bless America

Gnostic Politics

The solution to Global Warming is a Nuclear Winter brought about by Global Thermonuclear War.

Reasons to Destroy the Earth, Obama or not

1) Any classically influenced apocalypse, such as zombie, viral, alien, nuclear, oil, or psycho stalking sorority women in a mall, begins with one bold step. BE THE STEP! If you cause zombies to roam the earth... well thats pretty fucking badass man.

2) Felicia Day is probably not a virgin. That means someone other than you (read: me) has twitterpated her nethers with their probably-pianist-trained, Legolas-like long fingers. The ones with skin so thin they make sushi chefs drool. The only way to right this grievous wrong is to NUKE HIM FROM ORBIT. And by him, we all know I mean every square hectare of arable soil.

3) Seriously, cant be stressed enough. Even a small chance to cause zombies to rise is worth the risk. The risk of global thermonuclear war. Would you like to play a game? HELL yeah I would!

4) Who is sick of paying rent? Roll the ugliness of a global apocalypse!

5) Is there truly anyone out there who doesn't want a legitimate excuse to utter "I had to bust a cap in their ass." and have a legit reason? Is total world apocalypse too high a price to pay? Nay, NAY I SAY!!

6) It will lower the queues for our favorite world of warcraft servers.

Lost Time

My old familiar alarm clock died tonight, it seems. The loss was sudden and unexpected. I did not quite realize how much symbolism and meaning was intertwined into it's cheap mass-produced innards, until it was too late.

This particular clock talked. It had a slightly warm, approachable robotic tone that read off the hours and minutes - the fabric of our lives - in crisp and concise increments.

It was a present from my Paternal grandmother, when she got one and loved it. She was blind, you see, and so needed a talking clock.

It was a blessing to start each of my days with the instant reminder that there was someone out there who loved me, and who was blind, and definitely had larger issues than me. It is an order of magnitude harder to get upset about having to go into work an hour early when the voice that lifts yu from sweet reveries also reminds yu that a loved one is blind and cannot enjoy any of the sights I will see that day. No trees, no jokes, no children, no change. So shut up and get into the shower.

It also reminds me that I have the same genes as her, same disposition to bad eyes. It was a reminder that there are elements of my life that I cannot control, although possibly predict, and to bear appropriate humility through all my endeavors. I might go blind as well one day, without the luck of genetics or the mercies of american insured medical techniques. There but for the grace of god, go I.

And today that clock, my internal, digital conscience, ceased it's insightful beeps.

I cannot help but fear it is an omen for the woman whom it represents.

MFP

feb 3 gaming post

I did not expect this to be my first gaming post on this blog, because I have so much mental material (or materielles!) stock-piled like a nerdy Maginot line, but here we are.

When I grew up , a lot of people looked for ways to find self-esteem, and explored them. Jocks played sports, nerds did computer stuff in the nascent industry (I am a 1973, Commodore 64, Lets-play-Oregon-Explorer-on-an-Apple2e-kind of guy), and cute women flirted. Well maybe they did other stuff as well - I certainly wasn't observing them, try as I might.

So we explored this universal human need by focusing our efforts - and hence defining who we are for decades - by choosing between one of a few well-defined paths... frankly, metrics.

Tonight I watched a 7 year-old explain to a 30-something, for hours, how her Nintendo Ds worked, and just one fucking game - something called NintenDOGS, or the like.

I knew this angel well when she was 4 and 5. She was bright and focused on math and puzzle solving (!), but prone to suddenly change rules to her benefit when it suited her.

I listened intently now that she was 7, and her entire seminar was cogent and devoid of exaggerations, egoisms, fabrications. This game sounded really complex and kinda cool!

And just as I was impressed with the game and the tech, she uttered a phrase that prompted and entirely new understanding of the little pink, soft, beeping tool in her young impresionable hands.

With great confidence, when the adult said he didn't think he could handle it without her help, she said:

"Yes it is very detailed and complex, but nothing that I can't handle!"

The point I am trying to make is not that my friends little gal is smart, or that NintenDOGS is neat, but that technology, and most importantly gaming technology, has created a multitude of new paths and methods in which a young kid can find self-esteem, confidence, and ego. And in addition, while computer people of my generation who did well at Oregon Trail automatically defined themselves as 'Nerds', with all the benefits and self-loathing that entails, this little girl who loves pink and magic wands and dancing and being a Princess, could excel at a particular gaming technology and yet not be definied by the technology itself, but still draw all the self-esteem (and my god, ego!) that the successes offered. The technology benefitted her but did not define her, nor limit her.

That to me was Gnosis, a revelation. There is an entirely new world out there, and I am ignorant of it. A 7 year old takes it for granted, and to me it is foreign and magical. If there was middle ground, I am at a loss to find it.

The concept of children and young adults using, mastering, incorporating technology into their little lives but yet not being defined by it as a result is a completely new and foreign concept to me. I can only say I am jealous, even though my C-64 with Telengard and Bruce Lee from tape was way cooler than her crappy NintenDOG.

But yeah, I never went to prom either year, and that C-64 with Telegard and Bruve Lee on tape was a factor. It told me I was wonderful, and special, but we did not mix freely with them. I dream that one day this little girl will read this post I have written about her, and have absolutely no idea what the hell I am talking about.

Who knows if lowly gaming can one day be a bridge between races, classes, sexes? Is it possible that one day the jocks will not beat up nerds, but instead ask them for help with the final boss on level 7 of 'Waffle Thieves of Antiquity, and Other Baked Goods Nere-Do-Wells'? Or better yet, is it possible that gaming can unite people to such a degree that terms such as nerd and jock all blend into one happy, homogeneous guilt-free geekdom?

M. Frank

feb 3

gnostic football -

0 Ive fought this so long, but Joe Buck is just terrible. He is so likeable, I hate to admit it - but he is brutal. I cannot even fully explain why.

Beginnings

OK, until i figure out how to make separate pages and links, this will be four chunks on one page instead of a main page, and 3 side pages.

Gnosis: esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation.

In other words, a mystery - and one relevant to the understanding of one's own life, or that of others, or the world in which we live.

Let's face it - this complex majesty, this living Earth, holds very few surprises or mysteries for those with even a moderate IQ or basic observational skills. Macro-environmental physics are mostly deterministic, and therefore predictable. People follow basic societally encouraged patterns to encourage success and propogation of the 'species' (wasn't Species the movie where you got to see Natasha Henstride's bosom covered in blood? That's hot. But I digress.), and also therefore are relatively predictable; any good author will tell you to analyze a character's motives to determine future acts right off the bat.

For those who pay attention, the world can be an incredibly dull and magically-neutral environ.

These 'Gnostic' searches are an attempt to delve deeper. Admittedly, with no way of knowing if we are simply confusing and obfuscating simplicities in a vain attempt to delude ourselves into feeling self-important in discovery and exploration. We really have no objective way of determining what is a mystery, and what is bullshit. But we search in the hopes of the former, frankly because of ego, and of having really very little else to do once the whole food-shelter dynamic was solved about 500 years ago. Is mental masturbation a Sin or Illumination? And really, does it matter or do we care?

On that ambiguous, self-aggrandizing note, we explore in this blog three topics in no particular order:


0 Gnostic Christianity (should be a link)

-- There are like 200 different versions of Gnostic Christianity or Zoastrianism on Wikipedia - why are you creating another?

--> Because I am right and they are wrong.

Listen, here is the low down, without fancy labels or predictions:

To the brilliant observer (i.e Me, hereafter referred to as TBO), the world seems to be chaotic, painful, random, and about as far from fair, just, linear, family-friendly, team-oriented as it can be. Tropical storms, puppies choking on nylons. Babies dying in their sleep. Everything breaks, everything sucks, and the Newtonian law about objects in motion remaining in motion is wrong - objects in motion, left un-observed, will mysteriously fuck up at the worst possible moment for no apparent reason.

Order decreases as chaos, entropy, increases.

To paraphrase the (apparently) correct Second Law of Thermodynamics, shit that is not fucked up will fuck up at a later date. Things will never get better or more orderly... either give the illusory appearance of temporary stability, or disintegrate before your eyes (usually at some form of family holiday function)

So, one asks after noting all this, "What the fuck?"

Here is where I disagree (or ignore) other Gnostics, because I admit I don't know enough objectively to label or define anything other than in the most basic terms:

This fragile Earth, this universe of molecules and space-heaters-in-mobile-homes and Starbucks with sullen, depressed brunette wait-staff, is what we roughly could describe as 'white noise' to a radio operator.

God - maybe the creator of this physical realm, but maybe not ( I wasn't there! ), is off doing his Divine bowling league in Heaven (for lack of a better term), and we are stuck - trapped, if you will bear with me - in a physical realm of disorder and pain and chaos. Were we trapped here by an insane creator god who thinks he is the 'real' God, but isn't? Was this physical plane created by God the real deal as some form of test or staging ground to act as a barrier between inspiration and enlightenment? My answer is simple - I have no friggin clue. Not even a guess. I really don't think it matters.

For whatever reasons, we have been thrust into the crappy, mundane, physical world. We are Arnold in 'The Running Man', which I might add, featured a svelt Richard Dawson; I think you can already seem the wisdom in what I am saying.

So whoever did it to us, and whyever they did it, we mortal coils are stuck in a rat race where the walls keep moving, and more unsettlingly, taunting back at us, as we try to find some cheese. Or Gnosis. Or Salvation. Or low fat non-dairy half cafe lattes with a twist of lime, some sweet and low.

Basically, we are trapped in a physical prison. By whom? For what purpose? I have no idea and can't sell you one, try as I might. I don't drink coffee but I'd love to be able to buy some of those lattes for friends, family, brunettes.

I'd like to share a revelation (or Gnosis, if you've been stealing my lingo as I encourage) that proved to be wildly false, but still very useful. Which is the best kind really, as there is no such thing as a bad gnosis, just like (sadly) there can be no final, definitive one.

I was a devout Catholic Christian, and was blown away - BLOWN AWAY I SAID! - when I heard that there was at least sketchy circumstantial evidence that Jesus was the illegitimate son of Mary and a Greek mercenary. To this day, I have absolutely no idea if it is true or even a credible rumor; at the time, it didn't matter. Now it doesn't matter, but for very different reasons.

At the time, I was blown away. My solid foundation was rocked because it had been based on a FACT and now this FACT was in question.

It took a disturbingly long time for me to realize I did not care. Yep, I did not care about such a seemingly earth-shattering detail - was Jesus the Divine, Immaculately conceived, Son of God? Or Joseph? Or Bubba the pool boy? What were the implications one way or the other?

And BAM, Gnosis - It didn't matter to me. Whether Jesus was the Son of God, or a god, or Joseph, or Bubba, his message was Divine. Of that, from reading it, experiencing it, LIVING it, I was certain. Did it matter how I got it, whether he was wearing wool or a cotton-poly blend on the Cross? No, of course not.

The unfortunate Human prediliction to argue semantics is based on ego and the need to be (irrevocably falsely) unique. Over and over and over again, in religion, in gaming, in politics. Welcome to my Blog.

We live in a world we like to pretend is orderly, and therefore just and therefore (possibly!) Divine; it is none of those. We live in a relatively slow-moving, mostly benign, shitstorm. Suck it up and agree.

The *message* of Jesus, however the heck we were lucky enough to get it, is a lifeline that God the Father sent down (sacrificing Jesus in the process) into the Chaos of our world, so we might grab onto it and not be Lost. We were not doing all that well metaphysically, so he sent in a Lifeguard to slap some floaty arm balloons on us - but only those willing to accept them.

The good part of this theory - we can stop trying to pretend this physical world is the perfect design of a perfect god. We can admit that, most days, it is kind of noisy and smelly, and not that spiritual, and rarely inspiring or implying Divine thoughts unto the viewer. Basically, it is a large ball of dirt that has just barely cooled, but might be hit by an asteroid at any minute, and while we are not being destroyed by random galactic debris, there are still puppies crying, babies dying, and my Buffalo Bills can't win a fucking Superbowl; in a nutshell, it is an injust crapshoot run by Pete Rose and Roman Polanski, but minus the cash payouts or young scented muff. Hyperbole aside, certainly NO ONE can look around and decry, "This is Heaven".

The bad part - we can never know if we are right, we can never be 'done', our search will never be 'complete'. Worse than that, the world will continue to get worse and worse, descending into Chaos irrevocably. All we can hope is that our 'individual' time-lines are so insignificantly small on the scale of Said Bitch Universe that we are long dead before there is some Cosmic 'Phase 2'; She may build an Intergalactic Highway right across our palms, our hopes, our planet.

So we grasp that lifeline, that message of Christ, and tug as hard as we can, hoping that God will yank us out of the Bushwood Estates Pool before Karl Spackler bites into the Mars bar as we shockingly look Unto Him. Gunga... gunga galunga.

Amen.


0 Gnostic Gaming (should be a link)




0 Gnostic Politics (should be a link)

-- Is it as pre-determined as it appears to be?